


Let's Go On An Adventure

by SingingInTheRaiin



Category: Dragon Age II
Genre: (Not clickbait), Anders Being Anders, Anders is definitely Hawke-sexual, Carver is a mediocre brother at best, Dragon Age II - Act 1, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Mage Hawke (Dragon Age), Varric and Hawke are good friends, birthday party gone wrong, health potions, injuries, some combo of blue and purple Hawke
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-23
Updated: 2019-03-23
Packaged: 2019-11-28 15:32:31
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,460
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18210191
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SingingInTheRaiin/pseuds/SingingInTheRaiin
Summary: Hawke has a surprise planned for Varric. But they will be the ones surprised when bandits attack and it's just the two of them there to fight.





	Let's Go On An Adventure

“Hey Varric, do you want to go on an adventure?”

Varric looked up from the cards in his hand that he’d been intensely studying (and only replacing with better ones on rare occasion). Isadora Hawke was leaning back in her seat, eyes glittering with that almost childlike sense of excitement that hadn’t gone away in all the time that he’d known her. “Aren’t you tired of adventures? I feel like that’s all we ever do these days.” Not that he didn’t enjoy adventuring with Hawke- every day was always something new with her, which kept things fun, and kept his audiences entertained when he relayed the stories back to them later. 

Isadora shook her head. “This time is going to be different.”

Varric raised one eyebrow. “Oh? And why is that?”

There was no denying that the grin on Isadora’s face was quite infectious. “Because this time it’s just going to be the two of us. Two bros in the wilderness, with a surprising destination in mind.”

“And what would that destination be?”

“Guess you’ll have to come along if you want to find out.” Then she placed her hand face up on the table so that Varric could see her cards. “I think it’s fair to assume that I win this round?”

Varric stared at the hand in surprise for a moment, and let out a hearty laugh. “Alright, Hawke, you win. Let’s go on an adventure.”

,,,

“-and then when he told me that he actually made money from it, I just couldn’t believe it! I mean, how in the hell does someone get into a pyramid scheme so late in the game, and actually manage to profit from it? And it wasn’t just a little bit! He was jingling around an entire bag of gold in front of me. I thought my eyes were just about to pop right out of my head!” Both Isadora and Varric were laughing so hard that they could barely breathe. 

Varric cleared his throat. “Alright, so you’ll never guess what Blondie said to me just the other day-”

Isadora suddenly held up one hand. “Shh.” They both paused mid-step, and then Varric could hear the rustling in the nearby bushes that must have alerted Isadora. He quickly grabbed Bianca off his back and loaded the first bolt, while Isadora grabbed her staff to hold out in front of her. 

A moment later, several bandits were springing out of the bushes, and they paused to give Isadora a long look before the leader starting laughing. “What’s this, boys? An apostate with only a little dwarf for protection? How much do you think the templars will pay for an apostate corpse?”

“You’ll never have the chance to find out,” Isadora bit out before slinging a rain of fire towards the bandit leader. He dodged aside, but a few sparks landed on his coat sleeve, and he let out a startled yelp.

Then the other bandits surged forward, and it became a complete free-for-all. Varric and Isadora were entirely out numbered, but they were both good fighters who were able to work well together. 

The fight dragged on, but things seemed to be going well. But maybe even thinking that was enough to jinx things, because Varric reached back to grab another bolt, only to find himself grasping at air. “Shit.” He swung around, smacking Bianca right into the knees of the nearest foes, but he wasn’t sure that it would be enough. Especially when there were the bandits who were smart enough to keep their distance.

“Varric, watch out!” Suddenly Isadora was behind him, and he could hear the distant scream of the bandit archer going down. Isadora shoved a health potion and a couple of spare knives into Varric’s hands, and he dropped Bianca with a silent apology. Standing back to the back, the two of them finished off the rest of the bandits, and then there was only silence around them, besides their own panting breaths.

Varris picked up Bianca to shake off some of the mud and put her back on his back. He’d have to go around and collect his bolts from the bodies. Then he turned to Isadora. “Well that was certainly something to…” but he trailed off when he saw the way that she was hunched over, clutching at her stomach. And then she started to collapse to the ground, so Varric rushed over to grab her before she could fall all the way. 

He lowered her gently, and he could see the spreading bloodstain beneath where her hands were pressed to her stomach. Then he went to rummage around through her weird satchel purse thing, but there were no health potions in there. “Hey Hawke, I know you like to be dramatic, but could you at least hold off until we get back to town?”

Isadora chuckled wetly. “Sorry. But hey, at least it will make for a pretty badass story, right?”

“Yeah, kid, it will.” Varric looked around, and spotted Isadora’s staff lying abandoned on the ground a few feet away. “Blondie’s with us so often that I can’t remember if you’ve got any healing spells in your own repertoire.”

Isadora shrugged. “I’m not great, but I should be able to hold my insides in place for the next half hour or so.”

Varric gulped. “I hate to tell you this, but there’s no way we’ll get back to Kirkwall in that amount of time. It took us almost two hours just to get here.” He kept his voice calm, but he couldn’t stop himself from feeling slightly panicked. Sure, Hawke was a great protagonist for his stories, but she was a lot more than that, too. She was his friend. 

Isadora sighed. “We need to keep moving forward. We should be able to reach the others in time.”

Varric furrowed his eyebrows. “I think the blood loss is making you a bit too woozy.” He gently scooted away to grab Isadora’s staff from where it had fallen. “Here you go, kid.”

She reached out to grab it, getting blood all over the sleek wood. “It was supposed to be a surprise party. I know your birthday isn’t until next week, but I had promised my mother that I would go with her when she went to petition to get her house back.”

Varric refused to acknowledge the slight stinging in his eyes as Isadora awkwardly gripped the staff in a way that would let her point it towards herself. “Ah, you remembered that?”

“Of course. The rest of us came all this way last night to clear the path, but I guess those bandits just moved in at the perfect time to miss us then.” There was an intense look of concentration on her face, and then the blood seemed to stop spilling out so quickly. She held one arm out so that Varric could help her back to her feet, and despite the height difference between them, she ended up leaning most of her weight on him as she stumbled over to a tree. “I’ll wait here while you get your bolts and anything else these idiots might have had on them.”

Varric gathered up his weapons, and a few small gold pouches, but didn’t spend nearly as much time on making sure that he’d gotten all the valuables he could. Then he went back over to Isadora, and she continued to direct him towards wherever this party was supposed to take place. She got quieter and quieter as they walked, and Varric filled the silence himself with the craziest stories he could think of. He managed to get a few laughs out of Isadora, but mostly he felt like he was just talking to himself.

It felt like it took forever, but then they finally stepped into a clearing. There was a loud chorus of “SURPRISE!” but it quickly petered off when Hawke’s other companions realized the state that she was in.

Carver and Anders both rushed forward to grab one of Isadora’s arms each, and Varric sank down to the ground, feeling exhausted. He watched as Isadora was gently laid out on the ground, and then Anders knelt next to her. While he worked his magic, Carver stalked over to Varric with an angry look on his face. “What the hell happened?” It was strange that he sounded so pissed on his sister’s behalf, when usually he was just pissed at her.

But Aveline saved Varric from having to answer when she reached up to gently rest her hand on Carver’s shoulder. “Come on, calm down. I’m sure whoever’s fault it was is long dead,” and she led him a little further away.

Varric made a mental note to thank her later for the diversion. Then he looked over at where Anders was working. He looked seconds away from completely panicking, and it only served to confirm Varric’s suspicions that Anders was pretty gone on Isadora. Which made things awkward when he caught sight of Fenris, standing apart from all of the others. He was watching with concern too. Isadora had just recently confided in Varric that she had a bit of a crush on Fenris, despite his anti-mage views. He hoped that there wouldn’t be any fights between the two men, because he knew Hawke would hate that. 

To his surprise, Fenris started making his way over to Varric instead of Isadora. Then again, based on how closely Anders was sitting to the injured mage, he supposed he couldn’t blame Fenris. 

Fenris knelt down next to Varric, and held out a health potion. “You seem tired,” he said softly.

Varric accepted the potion and quickly downed it, and then let Fenris pull him back up to his feet. He already felt better, at least physically, but he couldn’t help looking over at Isadora in concern. She’d gone through all this trouble to put together a party for him, and then she’d gotten hurt to cover his back, and then she’d probably handed over her last health potion to him. And that injury had looked pretty serious. Varric was no expert in magic, but he could only hope that it would be enough to help her pull through this.

,,, 

With everyone there, it hadn’t been too difficult to bring Isadora back to Kirkwall. Then they’d all crowded inside that little shack of a house that Hawke lived in with her mother, brother, and uncle. She’d eventually woken up, tired and sore, but alive. Anders told her to take it easy and just rest for a while, and everyone offered their well wishes before eventually filing out, if only to avoid Gamlen’s annoying judgmental stares.

Fenris lingered back for a few extra minutes, but then he left too, and Carver said he was going out to punch some things. Not wanting to leave Isadora completely alone, since knowing her and her stubborn nature she would just get up and start wandering around without any supervision, Varric pulled up a chair to sit next to her bed. 

“I feel fine,” she assured him.

Varric shrugged. “Consider this me wanting to stick around for my own benefit. If you die, then who else am I going to get to put up with Bartrand long enough to go through the Deep Roads?”

Isadora snorted. “Alright, yeah, that’s fair. He is a rather insufferable man at times.”

“And you would know what it is to have an insufferable brother, wouldn’t you?”

Isadora sighed, and tilted her head back to stare up at the bottom of the bunk above hers. “Carver means well. I think he’s just scared to lose anymore family after everything we’ve been through. He did lose his father and his twin sister very close together. No one could be entirely okay after that. But that doesn’t mean I’m always going to take it easy on him, of course. You should have seen his face when we decided to have a competition on who would get the most kills while we were working for Meeran and I beat him by a long shot. Now that was a fun time.”

Varric snorted, and then when he saw a slight shiver pass through Isadora, he got up to grab a blanket from one of the other beds in the room. They were all far too thin, and he had no idea how anyone in this house survived all the way through the winter. “You know, I think that I have a minor suggestion for you here. It might be easier to go adventuring in the future if you avoid getting a giant hole in your stomach next time.”

Isadora laughed, and then winced. “Don’t make me laugh too hard, it hurts.” Then she frowned. “I’m sorry to have ruined your party, Varric. It was supposed to be a fun time for all of us to be there together, and it was over before you had a chance to enjoy it at all.”

Varric shrugged nonchalantly. “I wasn’t expecting a party at all, so I haven’t really been let down. And on the up side, you’ve lowered the bar so much that throwing a party for me next year should be as easy as throwing some confetti and buying me a drink.”

“Ah yes, the classic birthday beer. Only slightly less well known than the birthday cake.”

Varric tipped his head to the side. “You know, I’m pretty sure that Daisy actually did grab the cake before we left. So at least there’s that to look forward to, once Doctor Dreamy decides that you can eat solid foods again.”

Isadora rolled her eyes. “Oh stop it. Merrill is the one who made that cake in the first place. I would have warned you not to eat any once we got there.”

The thought of eating Merrill’s cooking was definitely enough to make Varric shudder. “I once saw her start to make soup, and then forget halfway through what she was making, and thought it was supposed to be a potion, so she started adding all kinds of weird stuff. And then by the end, she remembered that it was supposed to be soup, and tried to serve it anyways. You would not believe how quickly I got the hell out of there.”

The two of them chatted away for a little longer until Isadora eventually drifted off to sleep, and then Varric stayed there to watch over her for a little longer. He wasn’t sure quite what it was about her, but he just knew that she was meant to be something special. So he was glad that he had the chance to be her friend, because telling stories about great people was one of his favorite pastimes.


End file.
